Christ Community United Methodist Church
Update
July 15, 2025
Hi everyone:
The church was the church this past weekend. So many of you reached out to Barb Wilcox on the death of her mother, and I saw several of you at Annette Goodman’s funeral. The FISH team, the worship team, and the whole church rose up in support of Barb Walter and her family around the memorial service for our dear friend Frank Walter. Jesus said, in John 13, “by this will everyone know that you are my disciples; that you have love for one another!” You showed that love in so many ways this past weekend. It is a great blessing to be your pastor and to see the church at work!
Here are some things to know:
1. This coming Sunday, July 20, we take a look at two sisters: Mary and Martha. They have a well-known brother as well. His name Lazarus, the one Jesus raised from the dead in John 11. Luke 10:38-42 has a wonderful little vignette about Jesus’ visiting the sisters and how Martha gets all distracted and Mary sits quietly at Jesus’ feet. We often miss the point of this story. Jesus is not saying Martha should not be serving. His complaint with Martha is that she is distracted and by being distracted is distracting her sister (that’s a lot of distractions). The Bible is filled with multiple spiritualities and multiple ways that we experience God. The mistake would be to limit to only one style (contemplative living; or only a life of service).
Worship is at 10:00 a.m. here is the link to our You Tube page: www.youtube.com/@christcommunityumc3320
2. I made a mistake last week (well, probably more than one) – there is no community night on Thursday this week – the Next community night will be held in September.
3. SMALL GROUP MEETINGS WITH THE PASTOR: There are 5 (five) meetings and locations:
July 21 at 11:00 at Cathy Monticelli’s home
July 22, at 6:30 at the Kline/Strazi home
July 23 at 2:00 p.m. at Bonnie DeBoer’s home
July 29 at 6:30 at Jen Tse’s home
August 2 at 11:00 at the Church hosted by Jim and Chris Hockey
Reply to this email to sign up for any of these dates or sign up at the church. We will set up additional gatherings if necessary.
4. We celebrated a New Member of the Christ Community United Methodist Church as we welcomed Sydney Tse into our family. Sydney is a cardiac nurse at St. Joeph’s hospital.
In the next few weeks, Sydney will become our new Treasurer to replace interim Bob Flask who was filling in for our friend Frank Walter who died a month ago.
WELCOME SYDNEY and thank you for stepping up to this new ministry.
5. THANK YOU, Dave Claver. Dave has been working on the web site. The web site: ChristCommunityUMC.com has been updated and is slowly shaking off the cobwebs.
6. Thank you, Bonnie DeBoer and the SPRC for the lovely cake and reception following the July 10th worship service.
7. In our prayers: please pray for a world addicted to violence. Pray for Betty Jo Flask, who had her MS infusion today in Rochester (a semi-annual event). Pray for Barb Walter and Barb Wilcox and their families as they grieve. Pray for those who are shut-in, and in nursing homes. Pray for Christ Community and our mission, vision, purpose (attendance, so far this month, we were 45 on July 6 and 55 on July 13). Pray for renewal!
8. We are meeting with some people this week to get the sanctuary air conditioning repaired. We’ve had some donors step up (and will likely need a few more). Unfortunately, hotter weather seems to be the new norm in Central New York (I don’t remember there ever being tornados in CNY 30 years ago either). Cooling the sanctuary is important for people to be able to focus on worship and teaching.
9. GOOD NEWS: I finished the final edits of my book “The 37 Miracles of Jesus” this week. This book is written for my Uganda students and will be translated into Luganda and published in both English and Luganda this Fall. Miracles is the 5th resource I’ve developed for Nexus Seminary and Nexus Seminary Publications. The previous works were: A Bible Primer, A Church History Primer (background to the New Testament), The Parables of Jesus, and the I Am sayings of Jesus in John. This book was over three years in the making. Nexus has also published 10 other resources, class notes, etc. Mostly written by my colleague and mission partner, Rev. Davis Matovu.
These resources are only available in Uganda. However, If you would like an electronic copy to read let me know (bjnorrix@gmail.com) and I will send it to you. I do have hard copies of Parables, I Am – for temporary loan. The publication of these resources is made possible by the work of Friends of Nexus Seminary (FriendsofNexus.org).
10. Interested in an international adventure: Pastor BJ along with Pastor Alicia Wood, are leading a group to Egypt in October of 2026. Cairo, Alexandria, a four-day cruise on the Nile, overnight at Mount Sinai with an optional extension to Petra and Mount Nebo in Jordan. Brochures are available at the church or through Pastor BJ.
A Parting Thought
Getting acquainted with new people can be difficult. Getting reacquainted is probably harder. Here is why. In the 14 years since I was pastor at Christ Community the congregation has gone through many changes. Every single one of you is not the person you were 14 years ago. Hopefully, you’ve grown, you’ve experienced success and loss, victory and defeat. And these experiences change us. I have also changed. Moving to Buffalo, coming back to Syracuse United Methodist Ministries, losing my parents in 2021. Writing books for my Uganda students has deepened my knowledge of the Bible and it has broadened my sense of the mission of the church. So, this “getting to re-know you” process is a little tricky. I can’t assume you are still doing what you were doing 14 years ago. You can’t assume I see everything the same either. I think my core is pretty much the same: Love Jesus. Love People. Make the world a better place.
I was here when we developed the “Transforming the World for Jesus Christ One Person at a Time.” But who are we now? Who is God calling us to be TODAY? How do we live out our mission in this current reality? We will spend some time exploring these matters.
I still think there are only two vital questions. Question 1: What is God calling me to be? And Question 2: What is God calling me to do?
I’ll see you when the church gathers,
BJ Norrix, lead servant, missionary, pastor